


The same, but different.

by clairvoie



Series: Love and death are the great hinges on which all human sympathies turn. [1]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: (for now) - Freeform, Episode Fix-It: s02e13 Mizumono, Fix-It, Gen, Hannibal is sad but hides it well, It's 12AM right now, M/M, One Shot, Parallel universe themed thoughts, Saying things but not really saying things, excuse all the italics....I'm gay for italics and metaphors., lots of metaphors, will is conflicted
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-20
Updated: 2018-06-20
Packaged: 2019-05-25 21:06:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14985587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clairvoie/pseuds/clairvoie
Summary: “There is a world where I am the same, yet different. And in that world I tell you all the things that I cannot tell you in the others.”





	The same, but different.

**Author's Note:**

> I do quite enjoy the discussions of parallel worlds in Hannibal. "If everything that can happen, happens, then you can never really do the wrong thing." It's pretty interesting. Here's a universe wherein Will is the same, but different.  
> I got no beta, only me and my somewhat trained eye.

“I don’t need a sacrifice,” Hannibal grants, “do you?”

 

“I need him to know. If I confess to Jack Crawford right now-”

 

“I would forgive you. If Jack were to tell you all is forgiven, would you accept his forgiveness?”

 

This conversation, like others, is a delicately crafted foil.

Hannibal would forgive him. Hannibal would tell him all is forgiven. Right now, if he confessed right now.

 

“Jack isn’t offering forgiveness. He wants… justice.” _Two souls, alas, are dwelling in my breast…_ “He wants to see you, see who you are.” _...and one is striving to forsake its brother…_ “See what I’ve become. He wants the truth.”

 

“To the truth, then. And all its consequences.” The reflection of the candle catches on the bowl of his glass, orange and dusky. He needs not look at Hannibal to understand the catch in his words, nor the dejection in his voice.

 

He knows that Hannibal knows. He knows that he knows.

 _Two souls, alas…_ The affliction bristles under his skin, beneath his face, radiating like a goddamn blush. _I want your head in a cage_ , he thinks. _I want your body to contort like an animal and to see the garb extend itself and shed like snake skin. I want to see you._

 

The back road is illuminated solely by the yellow lights of his car, the farm fields encroaching upon the gravel like arms reaching to welcome him into the dark of a corn field at midnight. He is halfway home. He is in his car. He is reaching Virginia again.

 

There must be another world where it is easier for him. Where he entraps a serial killer and it is simply the job. A world where he is resolute. _Perhaps_ , he thinks, _there is a world where I hold a seat at the dinner table with Jack, with Hannibal, where we kill him during dinner._

 

_Two souls, alas, are dwelling in my breast…_

 

He blinks and finds himself in the corn field. Headlights illuminate a mess of green stalks pressed against his windshield, foot pressed heavily against the brake pedal.

 

The decision to reverse and swerve around to travel back to Baltimore isn’t so much a decision as it is a preordained conclusion. Granted that if everything that can happen, happens, then he can never really do the wrong thing. _I’m just doing what I’m supposed to._

 

Other-world-him is speeding down another country road, brushing out the taste of Hannibal’s meal from his teeth, and popping an ambien with a nip of whiskey. Other-world-him is drowning in some new inferno, some other living-dishonesty, and breathing in his own blood.

It is after one in the morning when he arrives back at the neighbourhood. He parks his car two blocks from the house. He walks slowly to his front door, hearing words and voices not his own swarming through the vacancy of his head. Righteousness and flying insects, the weight of a dead child’s hand in his own and the colours of a neck-scarf. Curiosity stringing together a hundred deaths and a thousand new lives in a sharp second.

The dissonance stops when Hannibal opens the door.

 

“Will,” he greets him, curiosity painting his tone of voice.

 

_You are aware of only one unrest; oh, never learn to know the other!_

“May I come in?”

 

Hannibal moves to allow the door to open further; Will steps across the threshold and fights to not dissolve into the silence of the nighttime. Seems the adrenaline from finding himself crashed into corn is gone.

 

“Would you like a drink?” Hannibal asks.

 

“No, thank you.”

 

Hannibal's blank eyes search for answers, and Will stares into the distance. He stares at Hannibal’s sleeping-shirt and not just underneath his eyes as he tends to. He breathes deep and heavy, as if about to sink beneath a surface of water quietly.

 

Hannibal thinks, _I could stay still and watch him for hours, stuck like a spider beneath a cup, a dog beneath a blanket. Why else would he be here but to concede his transgressions_ , is what he thinks last.

 

“There are,” Will begins, tentatively, “parallels of you… and parallels of me.”

 

“Parallel spaces wherein we speak of similar things and of things entirely the opposite, at the same time,” Hannibal offers back.

 

Will nods. “There is a world where I am the same, yet different. And in that world I tell you all the things that I cannot tell you in the others.”

 

“Do we reside in this world you reference, Will?”

 

He pauses, inhales and exhales. Decides. “I don’t need a sacrifice. I don’t need… justice. Not today, at least. I owe you a confession, I believe.”

 

Hannibal’s expression darkens as he says: “Yes, you do.”

 

Confusion colours Will’s face, acting as not even a part of him had already suspected. “Do you know?”

 

“I do.”

 

Will nods, turns to gaze at some distant corner. He still wants to hear me say it. “I didn’t kill Freddie Lounds. She’s in witness protection. Jack knows.”

 

“I know.”

 

Will nods again. “Of course you do. Tell me how you know?”

 

“I smelled her quite distinct shampoo on you several nights ago. The remaining pieces followed in sync after learning of the first breach. They began, in quick succession, to paint a picture of betrayal.”

 

“Will you kill me?” _For betraying you?_

 

“No.”

 

“Not today, at least, then.”

 

“Will you turn me in?” Hannibal asks.

 

“Not today. Not by my own hand.”

 

“You have agency in all matters, Will. In every life.”

 

 

Yes, he was beginning to see that now.

**Author's Note:**

> I think I'm going to turn this into a series at some point. I've only written this so far, but I want to write more explicit hannigram soon. xx


End file.
